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PROCEEDINGS 



KENTUCKY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



SECOND ANNUAL MEETING, 



IN l-RANKFORT, FEBRUARY 11, 1880. 



[From Kentucky Yeoman Report.-] 
The Kentucky Historical Society held its 
Second Annual Meeting in Major Hall, 
Frankfort, at 8 o'clock, P. M., on Wednes- 
day, February II, 1880. Owing to the 
inclement weather and hard rain prevailing, 
the attendance was not as large as it would 
otherwise have been, but those present 
constituted a highly intelligent and appre- 
ciative audience The platform was occu- 
pied by the officers of the Society, the 
Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker 
of the House, Ex-Governor Bishop, of 
Ohio; Hon. I. N. Boone, Representative 
from Clark county, a relative of Daniel 
Boone, and other distinguished citizens. 

The proceedings were opened with an 
appropriate prayer by Rev. Green Clay 
Smith, followed by an introductory address 
by Ex-Governor James B. McCreary, 
President of the Society. 

Upon its conclusion he announced that, 
owing to the unavoidable absence of Col. 
Wm. Preston Johnston, the orator of the 
evening, his address would be read by Maj. 
H. T. Stanton, whom he introduced to 
the audience, and who executed the duty 
assigned him with credit to himself and 
the author, whose absence, however, was 
much regretted. 



The next exercise on the programme was 
the reading of a memorial to the Legisla- 
ture by Gen. C. M. Clay, Chairman of the 
Memorial Committee, who followed the 
same with a few remarks. Succeeding 
this, Prof. G. W. Ranck, Curator of the 
Society, made a verbal report of the prog- 
ress of the Society during the past year, 
with a stirring appeal in its behalf. The 
enrollment of the new members followed, 
and the proceedings were closed with bene- 
diction by Prof. J. D. Pickett. We give, 
in the order of the programme, the several 
addresses of the evening: 
Introductory Remarks by James B. Mc- 
Creary, President. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: The lessons of 
History cannot be too highly appreciated, 
or too thoroughly examined. Whether we 
study them as presented on the Temples 
and Tombs of ancient times, or in the vel- 
lum volumes of the present, much benefit 
may be derived. Lord Bacon said: "As 
statues and pictures are dumb Histories, so 
Histories are speaking pictures.' 

Everything that preserves the Past of an 
Empire, a Republic, or a State, is valuable. 
The thread of events that joins the ages 
together, or the channel by which their 
special contributions have been handed 
down from Asia to Europe, and from Eu- 
rope to America, are full of thrilling inter- 
est. The dawn of civilization in the East, 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



and its march through successive oriental 
Empires ; the advancement of ancient pol- 
ity, science, art, and literature ; the strug- 
gle for personal liberty and independence, 
and the changes which occurred when the 
sunshine of Christianity first illumined the 
world, are not only speaking pictures of 
History, but are indicative also of the ulti- 
mate accomplishment by the human race 
of the grand destiny ordained by Divine 
Providence. 

A great philologist said: "History is a 
narration of events — a statement of the 
progress of a nation " If this is true, 
there is no country on earth whose teach- 
ings are more instructive or more worthy 
of preservation than ours. In this age of 
invention, improvement, and advancement 
the changes produced by investigation and 
discovery are so vast and rapid that it is 
difficult to realize their magnitude, or com- 
prehend the transformations that are oc- 
curring around us. According to the 
Deautiful representations of Bancroft, we 
are "setting up the grand temple of civ 
ilization. the separate stones and pillars of 
which each nation and age was commis- 
sioned to hew and carve." Our people 
have built according to their genius and 
instincts. Time and thought and expe- 
rience have not wrought in vain, and they 
realize that " they have builded better than 
they knew." In fact, when we consider 
their inventions and their workmanship, 
and remember that the American Union, 
though but little more than a century old, 
is about equal in territory to the whole of 
Europe ; has fifty millions of human be- 
ings, and connects two oceans ; has eighty 
thousand miles of railroads, and the same 
number of miles of telegraph; enrolled 
last year in the public schools nine millions 
of pupils, for whose education an army of 
over two hundred thousand teachers were 
employed, and about eighty millions of 
dollars expended by the States ; has annual 
productions of wheat, corn, cotton, and 
other staples that are sought after in almost 
every market of the civilized world ; has 
underlying her soil vast store-houses of 
coal, iron, gold, and silver, not surpassed 
by any other section of the globe, and has 
added to all these freedom of speech, free- 
of press, freedom of religion, and 
universal freedom of person, it seems as if 
our Republic was indeed reserved as the 
proper location for the grandest structure 
of civilization, and that the human mind 
cannot assign a limit to its growth, or an- 
ticipate the crowning events of the coming 
century, if, under wise laws, proper econ- 
omy, and correct statesmanship, its pros- 
perity is not retarded. Everything con- 
nected with tlie History of the United 
States is worth preserving and perpetuat- 



ing. Kentucky is a component part of our 
great Republic, and her sons should per- 
form their share toward rescuing from- 
oblivion and preserving all that is valuable. 
We owe it to our ancestors, to ourselves, 
and our posterity, to preserve and perpet- 
uate, in a durable form, the official and 
public acts of those who preceded us, with 
the same care and attention given to the 
public and official acts of those now in au- 
thority. While much that is valuable con- 
nected with the History of our State has 
been collected and preserved by the able 
and indefatigable efforts of Marshall, But- 
ler, and the senior and junior Collins, and 
by other Kentucky Historians, it is a mat- 
ter of regret that the archives of our State 
do not contain every important document 
in relation to the early conventions and 
other political events anterior to the sepa- 
ration of Kentucky from Virginia, and her 
admission into the Union. I may add, also,. 
that it is by no means creditable to our 
State that many of the old and valuable 
records and journals have been lying for 
years unhonored, unappreciated, and un- 
cared for, in undistinguishable confusion, 
in a room rarely opened, the prey of moths, 
cobwebs, and the dust of decay. The ab- 
sence of proper legislation authorizing 
them to be properly arranged and cared 
for is the cause of their present condition. 
Twenty-two States of this Union have 
Historical Societies, which have collected 
much that is valuable, and contributed 
much that has added to their power and 
eminence. Some of these State Historical 
Societies are supported entirely by State 
aid, and many of the best men of the 
country belong to them. There is no State 
whose history is richer in material of every 
kind, or fuller of thrilling interest, than the 
State of Kentucky. The lives of such men 
as Daniel Boone, the early pioneer ; Isaac 
Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky ; 
John Brown and John Edwards, the first 
Senators; Christopher Greenup, the first 
Representative in Congress from Kentucky ; 
Harry Innis, Benjamin Sebastian, Caleb 
Wallace and Thos. Todd, the first Judges of 
the Court of Appeals, help to make up the 
History of our State, give to it prominence, 
and serve as guide-posts to mark distinct 
periods of progress : but the History of 
Kentucky is not confined to them ; the 
evidences of a pre-historic race that pre- 
ceded the rude and untutored tribes en- 
countered here by the early Anglo-Saxon 
explorers; the events connected with the 
days when Kentucky was the pioneer of 
civilization, and the first Territory that ap- 
peared fur admission into the Union; the 
relics of the times which gave to her the 
name of " TJie 1 >ark and bloody Ground ;" 
the utterances of her statesmen ; the doings 



KENTUCKY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



of her soldiers ; the history of her bench 
and bar and pulpit, glittering with the 
wisdom of .men who might properly be 
called the peers of any who have ever lived 
within the borders of our Republic; the 
contributions of her sons and daughters to 
science, literature, and art, and her won- 
derful geological formations, all serve to 
make the work of the Kentucky Historical 
Society charming and comprehensive, and 
indicate that if it is properly supported by 
its members, and aided by the State, it 
will become equal in importance and mag- 
nitude to any in the Union. 

We meet to-night to celebrate the Second 
Anniversary of the Kentucky Historical 
Society. I am gratified to be able to state 
that it is in a prosperous condition, and 
that its future seems bright and promising. 

The object of the Society is to not only 
hold in trust for the State, and arrange, 
under proper authority, all records or papers 
that may be committed to its care, but also 
to collect or receive as contributions every- 
thing of interest or of value connected 
with the History of our State ; and also to 
form an association of Kentuckians, who, 
loving everything connected with Ken 
tucky, desire also to keep step with the 
music of an age of progress, improvement, 
and advancement. Surely there can be no 
more laudable undertaking than this, and 
the aid of every friend of the Common- 
wealth is invoked. There is no State more 
worthy of the affection of her sons and 
daughters than ours. The traveler, amid 
the sunny scenes of Italy, or France, or 
the lowlands of Scotland, or in the Repub- 
lic of Switzerland, finds no country that 
excels Kentucky ; and the morning sun 
rising in the east, and throwing its light 
over the granite hills of New Hampshire 
and across the fertile fields, magnificent 
cities, vast prairies and winding rivers of 
the great Mississippi Valley, and onward 
beyond the Rocky Mountains to the shores 
of the Pacific ocean, beautifies and illu- 
mines no State whose measure of liberty, 
prosperity, and honor is fuller than that 
of Kentucky, or that furnishes greater or 
more varied material for a Historical So- 
ciety. 

Address of Col. Wm. PrestonHohnston. 

The Kentucky Historical Society did 
the writer a great honor when it invited 
him to deliver the annual address. He 
knew that great difficulties intervened — 
business interests committed to his charge 
by others ; but he hoped so to arrange these 
as to permit his appearance at Frankfort at 
this time. The purpose of your Society is 
so near the heart of every Kentuckian, its 
business so full of inspiration, that every- 
thing seemed possible in its service. It 



has not, however, been possible for the 
writer to appear in person, owing to para- 
mount engagements, and he, therefore, 
avails himself of the services of a friend 
in the delivery of his address, and throws 
himself upon the indulgence of this Soci- 
ety. 

It is good for Kentucky that this His- 
torical Society has been formed ; that her 
glory in the past is safe in the hands of 
men sensitive to her honor, yet keenly alive 
to the demands of inexorable truth. Her 
deeds and achievements have been great 
and memorable. We should not willingly 
let them die. or be forgotten. True it is, 
that it is better to do great deeds than to 
record them. But there is no sharper spur 
to grand endeavor than a confidence that, 
even if it be made in vain, it will not sink 
into the dust, but will live in the hearts and 
memories of men. The unrecorded dead 
and deeds of a people fade into the infinite 
spaces of the past like the echo of the 
winds of a century ago. It is History that 
confers immortality. The power to achieve 
lifts a people above the groveling billions 
who cumber the earth; but it is only to a 
chosen few of the generous and gifted 
races of mankind that it. is given to write 
their annals on adamant and embody 
achievement in literature, and so shine 
into the far future, even as a star in the 
firmament, to guide and to glorify. It is 
the historical literature of a nation which 
confers upon it perennial life. Its tear- 
blotted and blood-stained pages bestow the 
only immortality possible to a nation, as 
distinguished from an individual. 

A memorable history fitly recorded is 
necessary to the very idea of a historic 
race ; and have you considered how much 
is implied in that term, a historic race ? It 
is to be numbered with the Greeks, in whom 
all forms of beauty found their standard 
and incarnation ; with the Romans, who 
dominated the world in the majesty and 
masterhood of strength and order ; with 
those children of Israel who struck the 
harp of prophecy and praise to the Lord 
Most Highest, which will resound till time 
shall be no more. It is to be counted in 
that strenuous brotherhood of European 
nations which directs the material forces 
and intellectual movement of the whole 
earth. This is a high destiny 

How is our American people to become 
a historic race ; and how is Kentucky to 
stand in its vanguard ? First, there must 
be aspiration, not only for equality with 
the very best, but for preeminence. Un- 
less you contend for the first place, you 
will be found in the last. It is a contest of 
Titans, into which the feeble, the fearful, 
and the sluggish need not enter. But you 
must not only inspire; you must think, and 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



do, great things. And, lastly, you must 
add to your aspiration and achievement the 
inspiration which emblazons thought and 
action in imperishable forms on the endur- 
ing scrolls of literature and history. This 
Society makes the first step in this last grand 
consummation — the record of your past. 

The question naturally arises, whether 
there is anything to justify the hope that 
your place in the march of nations may be 
in the front rank. Has this little Common- 
wealth given promise. of a really high and 
grand career ? I think it can be demon- 
strated by an appeal to the facts of history. 
This State is yet a youthful member of the 
community of civilized States. Only a few 
weeks ago I shook hands with the venera- 
ble Dr. Graham, walking briskly in the 
streets of Louisville. And yet his span of 
years nearly equals the whole existence of 
the Commonwealth. The century which 
marks the life time of Kentucky amounts 
but to a decade in the lifetime of a nation 
You are yet in the bloom of youth ; in the 
beauty and joyousness of your spring-tide 
What, then, can you have achieved? The 
infant Hercules strangled two monstrous 
serpents while yet in the cradle. Your in- 
fancy has been Herculean. It is a custom 
to chronicle the childhood of princes — of 
babes born in the purple ; and the pen of 
inspiration has deigned to celebrate the 
youth of those destined for leadership by 
divine selection. " He chose David also 
his servant, and took him away from the 
sheep-folds. As he followed the ewes great 
witli young ones, he took him, that he 
might feed Jacob his people, and Israel his 
inheritance." 

And, oh ! fellow-citizens, if ever ihere 
was a shepherd with the seal of sovereignty 
upon his brow, a fair young David among 
the sheep-folds, a community clothed with 
the signs and symbols of royalty, it is the 
Commonwealth of Kentucky. 

Again, I declare that you who have 
bound yourselves together in a well-organ- 
ized and zealous State Historical Society 
have done well. Your work is a good 
work. You are the keepers of the tables 
of the law. You are the registrars and 
chroniclers of the daily life of the State. 
You are sentinels to that treasury of thought 
where lie stored the crown-jewels of her in- 
tellectual and moral worth. The glory 
and honoi oi your State is in your keeping. 
The importance of your duty and your 
trust cannot be overestimated. 

It is my wish, in coming before the pub- 
lic, always to add some bit of original 
thinking, when possible, to our common 
stock of knowledge. Carrying out this pur- 
pose, 1 shall venture to ask a question 
appropriate to this audience and occasion, 
and to attempt_its answer. "What is His- 



tory ? " This is a question which has been 
often asked, and the reply would seem ob- 
vious enough. But the great men who 
have written history — the oracles — make 
response, not in definitions, but in epi- 
grams. Now, an epigram, no matter how 
central its aim or trenchant its edge, differs 
essentially from a definition. The epigram 
sweeps the horizon with bird's-eye view, 
and depicts the landscape in a sentence. 
This is art. The humbler, but not less use- 
ful, office of the definition is, with Jacob's- 
Staff and chain, to run the lines and mark 
the boundaries of knowledge. The wise 
Socrates taught that definition is the begin- 
ning of exact thought. You will, there- 
fore, pardon me my definition, which is 
submitted to wholesome correction. 

Let us' first look to the historians for their 
conception of what history is. You will 
find that Carlyle calls it "a looking before 
and after ; " Macaulay, "a true picture of 
the life of our ancestors;" Arnold, "the 
biography of a Society ; " Kingsley says, 
"history is the history of men and women, 
and of nothing else ; " Sir James Stephens 
views history "as a drama of which retri- 
bution is the law, opinion the chief agent, 
and the improvement and ultimate happi- 
ness of our race the appointed, though 
remote, catastrophe ; " Michelet, in his fine 
French way, says: "Thierry called history 
narrative, and M. Guizot, analysis. I have 
named it resurrection, and it will retain the 
name." I have no such words as these. 
They are as vivid as the flash of the electric 
spark ; but they are epigrams, not defini- 
tions. Will you now tread with me a lower 
plane of thought and feeling, in which we 
may find more of the exactness of the work- 
day worlds. 

History is man's true record of 
whatever is general, important, and 
ascertained in the living past of hu- 
MANITY. 

It is man's record ; and Ids record of the 
past of man. History relates to the past 
by force of the term. Prediction is not 
history, and what we call the present is al- 
ready past when it is proclaimed. The 
striking of the clock announces that the 
hour is dead. Moreover, it is man's rec- 
ord, not the eternal and infallible register 
of 1 1 i - acts, which is written in the Book of 
Doom. Neither is it Nature's record, her 
autobiography, speaking through the facts 
which we have grouped under the names 
of geography, geology, biology, and those 
kindred sciences which have a close rela- 
tion to the physical side of man. All these 
an- auxiliary to history; elucidate, illus 
t rate, help to embody it. They furnish the 
drapery for that spiritual nature of man, of 
Ids humanity, which, under God's gift, rules 



KENTUCKY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



5 



the upper realm of the earth, and the in- 
habitants thereof. 

History is the record of a living past, of 
those spiritual forces which animated men 
of other days, and which still sway, how- 
ever modified, the actors of to-day. Archae- 
ology, which is the paleontology of man, 
collects and classifies the fossil facts of hu- 
man existence, which retain the forms, but 
not the breath and sentient being, of life. 
It deals with what has perished. It strives 
to reconstruct, through aid of the imagi- 
nation, that dead past. Hence, though it 
is not history, it helps it, and is peculiarly 
within the province of a Historial Society. 
A flint arrow-head, an Indian mound, pre- 
historic pottery, all have a meaning for the 
illuminati ; they are the alphabet of the 
unknown. 

And so with paleol 'gy, or the science of 
antiquities. If a fact has perished, it be- 
longs to archaeology ; if it is perishable, 
to antiquities ; but the legacies of history 
have a perennial bloom. 

History must at last define itself by the 
standard of the permanent, the important. 
and the general. It is always a series of 
generalizations. It is by this division that 
biography is set apart from history, which 
it aids, illustrates and verifies. Biography 
is at once the mother and interpreter of 
history. But there is a life of society apart 
from the lives of its members, so that we 
must say with Arnold that " history is the 
biography of a society." 

Its position is central in the circle of hu- 
man knowledge, because it is the interpre- 
tation of man, the central figure of crea- 
tion. We must discriminate between it 
and the tangent, intersecting, and included 
provinces of knowledge. These auxiliary 
sciences are the handmaidens of the queen- 
ly daughter of Memory. 

but the most essential criterion of his- 
tory is its truth. All forms of the unreal, 
whether fiction or falsification, or fable, 
must be rejected from the limits of history. 

History, as a human record, partakes of 
the error and fallibility of man's nature; 
but resting chiefly upon human testimony, 
and having for a principal purpose the 
moral guidance of men, its decisions are 
based upon the preponderance of proba- 
bilities. 

Still, there are many facts which are cer 
tain. To narrate these and their attendant 
circumstances, and set upon them a moral 
value, are among the offices of history. 

You need not put any faith, my fellow- 
citizens, in that oft-quoted saying of the 
cynical Walpole, who himself had faith in 
nobody. "Do not read history to me," 
exclaimed the broken-down politician, " I 
know that that is false." He mistook his 
own false and faulty pleadings before the 



bar of history for the final decree of that 
just and awful tribunal to which the un- 
fortunate righteous cry aloud out of the 
very depths, and not in vain. Walpole's 
own place is fixed forever. History has 
laid her half scornful finger on the reputa- 
tion and memory of the arch-corrupter, and 
oh, how different is the shrivelled mummy 
from the man who filled so wide a space. 
No, my friends, history is true in the main 
to those who earnestly seek the truth. If 
this were not so, if the sifted evidence of 
the past were not trustworthy in most of 
its features, the same doubt and denial 
might be predicated of the veracity of the 
living, moving, breathing society around 
us ; and Mallock's question, " (s life worth 
living ?" would be already answered, "No." 
This Association is itself a proof of the 
vital interest felt in the establishment and 
perpetuation of truth. That is your aim, 
your object, your constant endeavor, the 
very reason for your existence ; hence you 
may feel an honest pride in your agency 
for good, and in the moral force you exert 
in bringing forth light out of darkness and 
establishing the reign of truth among men. 

I now turn to a practical question. What 
is the proper sphere of this Association ? 
The answer is implied in its name. Your 
Society is intended to rescue, to record, and 
to transmit the history of Kentucky. In 
the vastness of modern literary accumula- 
tion and scientific research, effective work 
and valuable results can be attained only 
by a division of labor. You will accom- 
plish much if you complete your own par- 
ticular segment in the vast circle of human 
knowledge. You have much to cheer you 
on in your exalted and animating task. Its 
labors will be lightened by the interest of 
a theme as stirring as the pages of Frois- 
sart and as picturesque as the Idyls of Ten- 
nyson, and will be sweetened by the rewards 
of patriotic endeavor. There is no grander 
romance than Kentucky's century of vivid, 
strenuous manhood embodies. 

If your efforts shall succeed in presenting 
a resurrected past instinct with the throb- 
bing life of a cycle of yesterdays, no sister 
State will show a chronicle more individual, 
or crowded with figures vaster, more titanic, 
or more potent in politics and war. Look 
to the beginnings of your history. The 
voices of its dawn stir the blood like the 
sound of a bugle. The gathering of the 
pioneers in our leafy glades rises like a 
scene from the tales of Chaucer, or a page 
torn from mediaeval romance. '1 hey 
seemed to be moved by that half-barbaric, 
half-divine spirit of unrest which lays the 
foundations of empire in the realms of mat- 
ter and of mind. It was the springtide of 
our national existence, the hey-day of our 
youth. The breath of May was in the 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



flowers and leaves ; the sweet sap was flow- 
ing in every fibre from tap-root to topmost 
branch ; there was life everywhere. The 
sound of rural merriment was on the breeze, 
and the echoes of the chase, or the keener 
and more thrilling notes of the combat, 
war-whoop, rifle crack, and the hard 
breathing of mortal struggle. All is green 
above, and all is green below, save that one 
red thread of heart's blood which streaks 
the verdant carpet, the mark of Indian 
cruelty and ha te. 

Life was joyous, intense, and childlike in 
its simplicity, restlessness, and eager enjoy- 
ment. Heroic Greece seems come again as 
we recall the story of the contest for the 
soil between a gifted race and their savage 
foes ; and as we behold rising from the 
bosom of this primitive Commonwealth, 
twin nurslings, the majestic form of law 
and the puissant presence of martial 
achievement. 

Common consent, the popular verdict, 
which is a wiser verdict than the few are 
always willing to confess, has, after the 
sifting of a century, assigned the posi- 
tion of the typical pioneer to Daniel 
Boone. Without exaggerating his virtues, 
or concealing his defects, I believe that 
this is a just judgment. He is entitled to 
this preeminence, not merely because he 
was the first to penetrate to the heart of 
this goodly land, but because, like Joshua 
and Caleb, the tidings he bore back to his 
countrymen were such as to induce them to 
brave the dangers of the wilderness, and 
the greater peril of the savage hunters who 
possessed the land. To enter this debata- 
ble ground, the battle-field where met the 
fierce warriors from the Miami and the 
braves of the South, was to pass between 
the upper and nether mill-stone. But the 
grit of the pioneer was sharper than the 
burr of the savage. He endured the fear- 
ful ordeal, and left to us the heritage of his 
hardihood and indomitable courage. On 
the next anniversary — nth February, 1881 
— you can, if you will, celebrate the third 
semi-centennial of the birthday of Daniel 
Boone. 

Boone was already well on in middle 
life, when with five others, in 1769, he 
crossed the crest of the Cumberland Moun- 
tains, and entered Kentucky. In a few 
months he was the only survivor of the 
party. Among them perished that Find- 
ley, who had explored the defiles of these 
mountains two years before, and to whose 
report Boone owed his ardent longing for 
this adventure. Findley stands to us the 
shadow of a name ; the first explorer, the 
first expiatory victim, of the invaded sanc- 
tity of the wilderness. The life of Daniel 
Boone is familiar to this audience — his com- 
bats with rifle and scalping knife ; his 



perilous adventures by flood and field ; his 
absolute isolation in the unbroken solitude 
of the forest ; the restless craving of his 
soul for what was beyond, which bore him 
on and on, until his bones were laid by the 
banks of the Missouri. 

Did you ever try to conceive over what a 
compass of country, and with what perils 
the pioneer matle his ceaseless tramp ? In 
this day of steam-power and iron rail, we 
are whirled hither and thither as whim or 
business prompts, and it is hard for us to 
estimate the endless marches and counter- 
marches, which carried the early settlers 
over unknown and hostile regions. The 
spirit of migration stirs the blood of men like 
some potent fever, which will not down. 
Think of Boone, ever on foot, born in 
Pennsylvania, a dweller in North Carolina, 
the explorer of Kentucky. Think of his 
pilgrimages bacW and forth ; his expeditions 
against the Indians ; his scouting parties ; 
his long hunts. We see him a prisoner at 
Detroit ; waging war in Ohio, Illinois, In- 
diana, and at last, a settler in Missouri. 
But whether as warrior, hunter, captive or 
citizen, he bore himself worthily. Patient 
of fatigue and suffering, circumspect in 
council, eager in the fray, he knew how, 
when occasion required, to do and endure 
all things for the common weal. This is 
patriotism. Remember his escape from the 
Indians at Chillicothe to warn our infant 
colony of the threatened invasion. He 
saved it. His > courage, his endurance, his 
intelligence saved the little settlement at 
Boonsborough. This is to be a good citi- 
zen, to give all that is in you for the com- 
mon cause. Therefore, the memory of 
Daniel Boone deserves well of the Common- 
wealth of Kentucky. 

But if it is our duty to perpetuate the 
name of Boone, as the type of the simple, 
narrow, aggressive pioneer, there is another 
of a loftier, broader genius, the chief 
founder of the imperial splendor of all this 
broad West, the great Kentuckian of the 
last century. There is but one man to 
whom the name can be applied — George 
Rogers Clark. 

You all know how this great man came 
to Kentucky, a mere youth in years, but 
already an adept in war, and revolving in 
his capacious brain schemes of empire for 
the " Old Dominion " which had given him 
birth. A land-surveyor by profession, he 
had already served in the Indian wars, 
when, in 1775, being then less than twenty- 
three years of age, he came to Kentucky. 
He at once obtained command of the In- 
dian lighters of the colony. He initiated 
the movement for an organized government, 
and, in the next year, 1776, was sent as a 
delegate to urge upon the State authorities 
of Virginia the claims of the colony for 



KENTUCKY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



government and defense. Clark was one 
of those men who are called, by every im- 
pulse of their natures, to the work of 
moulding a crude community into a regu- 
lar Commonwealth. He was an organizer 
like Theodoric, like Charlemagne ; and, as 
the chief duty of the hour was the protec- 
tion of the colony by arms, he converted 
the guerrilla forays of his countrymen into 
a system of defense, which, in repelling at- 
tack, struck at the very vitals of the assail- 
ant. We are too apt, in reflecting on the 
meagreness of the means employed, to un- 
derrate the magnitude of the results and 
the scope of the genius which foresaw 
them. It was Clark who conceived the 
great design of wresting the Northwest 
from the British Empire. He captured 
Kaskaskia with but four companies, and 
compelled the surrender of Yincennes with 
only 175 men, who had endured the most 
intolerable hardships to reach it. He 
transferred the theatre of war from the soil 
of Kentucky to the territory north of the 
Ohio, and taught the enemy to fear for 
their own corn-fields and wigwams. He 
made peace possible in this smiling land by 
teaching the rigors of war to a ferocious 
foeman. His was the far-reaching vision 
and ample pinion of the eagle. 

It was a sad sight, when aye and poverty 
and his infirmities had bowed the old hero 
down, and he sat wifeless, childless, and 
crippled at his cabin door, with a new world 
in which he had no part rising around him. 
His rude dwelling was on Corn Island, at 
the Falls of the Ohio, near where the grand 
railroad bridge spans the plunging rapids. 
Here he brooded over the neglect which 
had consigned him to early obscurity. He 
had given a teeming and imperial territory 
to his country, and still he had scarcely 
where to la)- his head. At last, the kind- 
ness of his sister, Mrs. Croghan, drew him 
from his solitude, and he had the comforts 
of a home with her at Locust Grove, six 
miles above Louisville. 

An old aunt of mine, who was on familiar 
terms, as a child, in that household, has 
described to me the old man as she saw 
him in those sad latter days. He was al- 
ways a friend of her father's, and would 
summon this little girl to fan away the flies 
as he slept in his chair. He always re- 
warded the service with some grave and 
courteous compliment. He had lost a leg , 
and, as he sat asleep, with face as white as 
wax, and his grand, towering forehead coi- 
rugated, and bald as Scipio's, there was 
something very noble and awful in the 
heroic ruin, even to the eyes of a child. 

The untamed freedom of his early life 
had unfitted him for domestic happiness. 
A tradition is preserved in his family that 
he was fascinated with the beauty of the 



daughter of the Spanish Governor of St. 
Louis at the time he relieved that post 
from an Indian attack. But witnessing a 
want of courage in the Governor, he broke 
off his addresses to the girl He said to 
his friends, " I will not be the father of a 
race of cowards.'' There was a vein of 
fierceness in his nature, which grew upon 
him as the clouds settled on his life. He 
resented deeply what he considered the 
ingratitude of the Republic. Yirginia pre- 
sented him a sword. When the commit- 
tee brought it to him, he received their 
compliments at first in gloomy silence, and 
then exclaimed: '-When Virginia needed 
a sword I gave her one. She sends me 
now a tov. I want bread !" He thrust 
the sword into the ground, and broke it 
with his crutch. 

An impression has got out that he was 
an illiterate man. This is a mistake. It 
arises from the verbati?n copy of his journal 
printed in Cincinnati. But General M. 
Lewis Clark, his nephew, tells me that he 
had it from his father. Governor William 
Clark, that the manuscript of this journal 
was in his handwriting, and was written by 
him, at dictation, as his brother's amanu- 
ensis, when he was a mere boy. It proves 
nothing as to George Rogers Clark's clerkly 
skill. 

His grave is marked by a little headstone, 
marked G. R. C. Not half a dozen people 
in America can point it out. It is in Cave 
Hill cemetery, at Louisville. Pilgrimages 
have been made to the tombs of smaller 
men ; tall monuments have risen at the 
public behest to people who were puppets 
beside this great, neglected man. But 
above the gloom of his declining years, 
above the forgetfulness which has obscured 
his memory, will yet shine forth the glory 
of George Rogers Clark, the chief founder 
of this Commonwealth, and of all the States 
of the Northwest. Are republics ungrate- 
ful ? Is it only for living and prosperous 
soldiers, who may have future favors to 
bestow, that popular honors are reserved ? 
It is not George Rogers Clark who is dis- 
honored by the obscurity of his neglected 
grave. I do not believe that the people of 
Kentucky, and of the Northwest, who have 
the right to share in a tribute to his ex- 
alted merit, will long suffer their hero to 
remain uncommemorated. 

During the period of its infancy, this 
Commonwealth was certainly no spoiled 
child of fortune. The brave hearts and 
strong arms of her sons were the only 
guardians of her frontiers. When the fee- 
ble colony appealed to the mother State of 
Yirginia in 1776 for powder, the appeal 
was in vain, until Clark exclaimed, " A 
country which is not worth defending is 
not worth claiming." The population of 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



this country is growing accustomed to run 
to the General Government for aid on every 
occasion, ordinary or extraordinary. It 
was not so in earlier times. Indeed, the 
interests of the States were so localized, 
and the Federal tie so slight, that these 
remote settlements made their way under a 
stress of adverse legislation and unfriendly 
treatment that greatly alienated them from 
the Atlantic States. Kentucky was not 
admitted as a State of the Union until 
after eight conventions had been held by 
her people to attain that end. The North- 
eastern States showed themselves especially 
selfish in their treatment of the trans-Alle- 
gheny settlements. For the sake of some 
commercial advantages to themselves, they 
were willing to trade off to Spain the right 
to the free navigation of the Mississippi 
river by the inland States. With no outlet 
to her products, Kentucky would have 
been left isolated in a desert. Thus 
hemmed in by mountains, by hostile tribes, 
and by unjust treaty regulations, the in- 
fant republics of the West would have been 
blighted at their birth. Happily, the good 
sense and justice of Virginia succeeded in 
preventing this iniquity. But the attempt 
certainly fostered projects of independence 
and secession in Kentucky, as any enor- 
mous sectional injustice is sure to do. The 
fear of this, and of centralized oppression, 
left its stamp upon the politics of the State, 
and to it we owe the Resolutions of 
ijgS-'g, and the firm resistance of Ken- 
tucky to the Federal party. 

After the epoch of settlement and border 
warfare, of constitutions and the begin- 
nings of government, came a long era in 
which a majestic structure of municipal 
and constitutional law rose upon those rude 
foundations, and absorbed the intellectual 
energies and civic passions of a whole peo- 
ple. The peculiar condition of the land 
law and of criminal law in this State gave 
to its litigation a subtlety, a logical preci- 
sion, and an opportunity for oratorical 
effort that have rarely been excelled in any 
country. The forum became the battle- 
field. The age of orators and of great 
lawyers had come, and we behold all the 
enthusiasm of an ardent race, selecting for 
its political chiefs the most eloquent of its 
sons. In a host, who swayed the multi- 
tude by the graces or skill of public speech, 
it is not invidious to name that one who, 
for so many years enchained the hearts and 
imaginations of the whole country, Henry 
Clay. This is not the occasion for a eulogy 
upon this great party leader ; but, while he 
represented Kentucky, her voice, her in- 
fluence, and her fame were not excelled by 
older and more populous States. When- 
ever parties were marshaled to decide ques- 
tions of national importance, a vast body 



of the American people awaited in respect- 
ful silence the mandate of that imperious 
chief to whom they had given their abso- 
lute confidence and their hearts. 

If Clay was the Achilles of the forum, 
the young and gifted citizen who succeeded 
to his honors and his power, was the 
Ulysses of American statesmanship. John 
C. Breckinridge was a man whose stately 
form and winning presence still lingers in 
the memory of most of those here present. 
He was the friend of so many of us that 
neither am I prepared to speak, nor you to 
hear, a discussion of the man and his deeds, 
with that calm and judicial frame of mind 
which he himself would have brought to 
the scrutiny. Brave, patient benevolent, 
sagacious, wise, he sought the distinction 
accorded to Aristides — the Just. He used 
no machinery of party, but trusted to the 
soundness of his views, his eloquence, his 
courage, and his personal graces, which led 
men captive. An orator, a statesman, a 
gentleman of knightliest type, these gifts 
did not complete the round of a character 
singularly endowed. Breckinridge had 
many of the qualities of a great soldier. 
He rendered much excellent service, and 
performed some splendid achievements. 
His career was coincident with the epoch 
which has just passed away. He died 
young. His whole public career was 
spanned by twenty years; but he will stand 
as a fine figure in American history, of 
which any Kentuckian may be proud. 

In the rapid sketches of a few great and 
typical Kentuckians, which I have thus 
presented to you, I have only opened the 
way for more skillful artists to complete a 
magnificent picture gallery of eminent and 
worthy sons of our State. Let us hope 
that this work may be done with the 
genius which everywhere abounds among 
her children, and with that patient indus- 
try which is the servant of a resolute will. 
The service thus rendered is an act of 
patriotism, and he who performs it well 
deserves the gratitude of his fellow-citi- 
zens. The Historical Society, in initiating 
this duty, may properly be accounted a 
public benefactor. 

Memorial of the Kentucky Historical 
Society to the General Assembly. 

To the Senate and House of Representatives 
of the Commonwealth of Kentucky : 

Your petitioners would respectfully rep- 
resent, that they have been appointed by 
some of the most distinguished citizens of 
our State to ask of your honorable body a 
charter (which is hereby submitted) for a 
"Historical Society" of this Common- 
wealth. 



KENTUCKY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



History has been said to be " Philosophy 
teaching by examples" — "the sum of all 
human events" — and the narration and 
perpetuation of the same. Everything that 
concerns the mind and consciousness of 
mankind is the object of History. It is, 
therefore, the nucleus of all the sciences, 
all the arts, and all thought. The narra- 
tion of the events of a single life is Biog- 
raphy — of a State, nation, or all mankind, 
is History. So History itself sets forth 
man's destiny and the best methods of his 
"life, liberty, and happiness.'' The life of 
a man is short, but infinite is the time that 
follows. History is not only an aspiration 
for earthly immortality, but is the basis of 
the wisest conduct of human affairs. All 
nations have felt these truths. We have 
the mounds, the stone hatchets, crockery, 
&c, of the rudest savages, passing on 
through all grades of progress till we meet 
the pyramids of Egypt, the oldest known 
center of man's highest development. Then 
we have ruins, temples, inscriptions, fossils, 
mummies, coins, medals, statues, paintings, 
annals, chronicles, languages, and all that. 
These are the materials of History. 

Kentucky is the fust-born of the old 
thirteen States None is richer in heroic 
deeds, romantic adventures, and patriotic 
aspirations, x Of all the earth, we are 
among the first in the natural elements for 
the evolution of the highest animal life. 
We have no Historical Society. Much has 
been lost forever for want of records, by 
neglect, and the lack of co-operation; 
many objects of value have passed into the 
hands of the Historical Societies of other 
States. In vain will you enact laws for the 
encouragement of manufactures, mines, 
agriculture, and the highways of com- 
merce ; if History is neglected, you cannot 
reach the highest civilization. 

We need not go to foreign nations for 
encouragement. All the most enterprising 
States of the Union have established His- 
torical Societies ; have given liberal sums 
out of the Treasury of the Commonwealth, 
and annual appropriations — Wisconsin, 
our junior, leading the way with an annual 
grant of five thousand dollars. We there- 
fore beg your honorable body to legal- 
ize our charter; to give us a fire-proof 
room or building to preserve all that is 
worth saving, and to grant us an annual 



sum of $ to pay officers, to print our 

records and transactions for exchange with 
other Societies, and for the public use, and 
thus do our part for the advancement of 
the State, the nation, and mankind. 
C. M. CLAY, Chairman, 

j. b. Mccreary, 

GREEN CLAY SMITH, 

I. W. DODD, 

G. W. RANCK, 

L. E. HARVIE, 

THOMAS SCOTT, 

J. K. PATTERSON, 

H. T. STANTON, 

JOHN WATTS KEARNEY. 

C. E. BOWMAN, 

CHARLES ANDERSON, 

J. H. LEWIS, 

Committee. 

Remarks of Gen. C. M. Clay. 

Citizens, never shall we believe, till ex- 
perience shall disprove our hope, that the 
Representatives of our gallant State will 
refuse our petition. We have seen m<>st 
liberal sums granted in perpetuation of the 
memory of some of Kentucky's honored 
sons. Will they refuse to all her children, 
of all times and all parties, a tithe of what 
she has so generously bestowed upon a 
few ? Man Uses not upon bread only — the 
mind, the sentiments, as well as the body, 
must be fed, or else we perish. It was the 
record of the heroes of Greece and of 
Rome in annals and song, and eloquent 
portrayals, which were the banners and the 
battle cries that led them on to victory and 
the supremacy of the world. Not all the 
statues, the mausoleums, the Pantheons, 
and the Alhambras, have so fired the patri- 
otic souls of all succeeding generations as 
the sublime and immortal words, " Go tell 
it at Lacedremon that we died here in 
obedience to her laws." Over all the earth, 
in all the seas of time, lie the sad wrecks 
of human hopes — of "life, liberty, and 
happiness." History alone remains — the 
light is not extinguished : it is on the altars 
of the fire-worshipers only that this inex- 
tinguishable flame burns on forever ! Let 
us, Kentuckians, gather up all our forces for 
the future. It is the spirit of a people 
which constitutes its victorious power ; 
whilst that lives, a nation can never die! 



IO 



KENTUCKY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



CHAPTER 244. 

AN ACT to incorporate the Kentucky Historical 
Society. 

g I . fie it enacted bv the General Assembly of 
the Commonwealth of Kentucky, That C. C. 
Graham, J. Stoddard Johnston, Green Clay 
Smith, James B. McCreary, James K. Pat- 
terson, Cassius M. Clay, John. R. Procter, 
Bennett H. Young, E. D. Sayre, George W. 
Ranck, Richard H. Collins, John B. Hous- 
ton, Euclid L. Johnson, J W. Dodd, W. 
C. P. Breckinridge, J M. Wright. Lewis E. 
Harvie, Dr. Robert Peter, J. O. Harrison, 
William M. Beckner, T. D. Marcum, J. 
Aug. Williams, D. Howard Smith, Bedford 
Leslie, H. T. Stanton, G. R. Keller, D. C 
Buell, Charles Anderson, William Preston, 
Thomas Bradley, James Speed, T. L Jones, 
Luke P. Blackburn. Clinton McClarty, 
Isaac T Woodson, Lucius Desha, jr , Van 
B. Young, John Andrew Steele, Attila Cox, 
Grant Green, W P. D. Bush, T. M Tur- 
ner, J Q. A. Stewart, A. W. Overton, F 
B. Huston, T C. H. Vance, D. C. Barrett, 
and their associates and successors, be, and 
are hereby constituted, a body-politic and 
corporate, by the name of the " Kentucky 
Historical Society;" and by that name shall 
have perpetual succession, may sue and be 
sued, implead and be impleaded, defend 
and be defended, and have all the faculties 
and liabilities of a corporation. 

§ 2. That the object of said Society shall 
be to collect, preserve, and make known 
materials and memories relating to the his- 
tory of Kentucky; to diffuse information 
concerning the State's resources and ad- 
vantages ; to aid in her development and 
progress, and to help in every way to in- 
crease the sum of human knowledge 

§ 3. That said Society may have and use, 
and, at its discretion, change a common 
seal; may ordain and enforce a constitution 
and by-laws, rules and regulations, and 
elect a President, two Vice Presidents, a 
Curator, Recording Secretary and Treas- 
urer, Librarian, and Executive Committee, 
and such other officers as said constitution 
or by-laws may prescribe : Provided, Said 
constitution, by-laws, rules and regula- 



tions, are not inconsistent with the Con- 
stitution and laws of the State, nor of the 
United States. 

$ 4 The said Society shall be located at 
the Capital of Kentucky; a majority of the 
members of its Executive Committee shall 
reside at the same ; its annual meetings 
shall be held at the same, and also as many 
other meetings of the Society as its mem- 
bers may think proper. 

\ 5 That said Society may receive and 
hold, by donation or devise, real or personal 
property to any extent, and may, by gift, 
purchase, or otherwise, hold books, papers, 
documents, historical memorials, and other 
articles suited to promote its objects and 
usefulness ; but all of said property shall be 
held in trust for the State of Kentucky, 
and shall be exempt from all State, county, 
and municipal taxation. 

\ 6. That the entire collection of books, 
papers, documents, memorials, and other 
articles of said Society, shall be deposited 
and kept at the Capital of Kentucky, and 
no part of said collection, except duplicate 
articles, shall be sold or removed from said 
Capital without the consent of the Legis- 
lature of Kentucky. 

§ 7. That the two rooms over the Aud- 
itor's office, in the third story of the build- 
ing in Frankfort known as the " Fire-proof 
Offices," are hereby set apart and dedicated 
to the use of said Society ; but if, from any 
cause, there should be a dissolution of said 
Society, then all the property and collec- 
tions of the Society in said rooms shall be 
taken possession of by the Governor of 
Kentucky for the State of Kentucky. 

§ 8. That the Governor shall assign to 
said Society for safe-keeping such parts of 
the State archives, and such articles of in- 
terest belonging to the State, as he may 
think calculated to promote the objects of 
said Society; but said archives and articles 
shall be held in trust for the State, and 
shall be subject to the order of the Gov- 
ernor. 

§ 9. This act shall take effect from its 
passage 

Approved February 19, 1S80. 



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